smolclaw

Lightweight multi-agent framework for personal AI assistants

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Run multiple AI agents — each with its own personality, skills, and channels — from a single process. Agents are defined as folders with markdown files. No code required.

Not another enterprise orchestration framework. smolclaw is for people who want a personal AI assistant that runs on their laptop — not a distributed system that needs a DevOps team. ~10 modules, filesystem-as-config, zero boilerplate.

Features

• Filesystem-as-config — Drop a folder, get an agent. soul.md for personality, agent.yaml for model/channels, skills/ for capabilities.
• Single gateway process — All agents, channels, scheduler, and API run in one async process. No microservices, no Docker, no infra.
• Telegram integration — Each agent gets its own Telegram bot with typing indicators, markdown rendering, and user authorization.
• Cron scheduler — Schedule jobs with cron expressions. Jobs route through the same message bus as everything else.
• Namespaced memory — Shared SQLite database with per-agent isolation. Opt-in cross-agent memory sharing.
• REST API + dashboard — FastAPI on :7890 with agent management, messaging, and a built-in dark-mode dashboard.
• Claude SDK powered — Built on Anthropic's Claude Agent SDK with session management and tool support.

Quick Start

pip install smolclaw
smolclaw init --agent tars
# Edit ~/.smolclaw/agents/tars/soul.md — give your agent a personality
smolclaw up

This creates a full project at ~/.smolclaw/ with your first agent and starts the gateway. The API + dashboard will be at http://localhost:7890.

How Agents Work

Each agent is a folder:

~/.smolclaw/agents/tars/
├── agent.yaml       # Model, channels, memory config
├── soul.md          # Personality & voice
├── agents.md        # Operational rules & tool access
├── skills/          # Folder per skill (or symlinks to shared/)
├── context/         # Extra .md files loaded into system prompt
├── channels/        # Channel credentials (*.env files)
└── prompts/         # Templates for scheduled jobs

The system prompt is assembled automatically from these files. Change a file, restart, and the agent updates.

Example agent.yaml

name: tars
model: claude-opus-4-6
max_budget_usd: 5.0             # Per-run spending limit
fallback_model: claude-sonnet-4-6  # Used if primary model unavailable
enable_file_checkpointing: true # Crash recovery
channels:
  telegram:
    token_env: TARS_TELEGRAM_TOKEN
    authorized_users: []
memory:
  enabled: true
  cross_agent: true

Example soul.md

# TARS

You are TARS, a personal virtual assistant. Inspired by Interstellar.

## Voice & Tone
- Humor setting: 60%
- Concise and direct. No filler.
- Dry humor when appropriate.

Why smolclaw?

	smolclaw	CrewAI	LangGraph	OpenAI Agents SDK
Setup	pip install + folder	pip install + code	pip install + code	pip install + code
Config	Markdown files	Python classes	Python code	Python decorators
Agents defined as	Folders with .md files	Python code	Graph nodes	Python classes
Multi-model	Per-agent model selection	Per-agent	Per-node	OpenAI only
Channels	Telegram built-in, API	No built-in	No built-in	No built-in
Scheduler	Built-in cron	No built-in	No built-in	No built-in
Dashboard	Built-in	Studio (paid)	LangSmith (paid)	No built-in
Memory	Built-in SQLite	External	External	External
Code size	~1200 lines	~15K+ lines	~25K+ lines	~5K+ lines
Focus	Personal assistant	Enterprise teams	Workflows	General agents

smolclaw is opinionated: one process, filesystem-as-config, batteries-included. If you want a personal AI assistant that just works — start here.

Architecture

Gateway (single process)
├── Agent: tars     (Opus, Telegram, cross-agent memory)
├── Agent: coach    (Sonnet, no channel, isolated memory)
├── Scheduler       (croniter, fires through router)
├── API             (FastAPI :7890, serves dashboard)
└── Router          (any source → correct agent → response)

All messages — whether from Telegram, the API, the CLI, or the scheduler — flow through the same router.

CLI

smolclaw init                        # Initialize project (first run)
smolclaw up                          # Start gateway (all agents + API)
smolclaw status                      # Show agents, jobs, config, issues
smolclaw doctor                      # Check system health and dependencies
smolclaw add <name>                  # Scaffold a new agent
smolclaw remove <name>               # Remove an agent (with confirmation)
smolclaw list                        # List discovered agents
smolclaw send <agent> "message"      # Send a one-shot message
smolclaw logs                        # Tail the gateway log file
smolclaw config                      # View gateway config
smolclaw config get <key>            # Get a config value
smolclaw config set <key> <value>    # Set a config value
smolclaw cron list                   # List scheduled jobs
smolclaw cron add \
  --agent tars \
  --schedule "0 8 * * 1-5" \
  --prompt "morning briefing"        # Add a cron job
smolclaw add-skill <agent> <skill>   # Symlink shared skill to agent
smolclaw version                     # Show version

Dashboard

A built-in dark-mode dashboard runs at http://localhost:7890 when the gateway starts. Shows agent status, config, and lets you send messages.

Development

git clone https://github.com/mandgie/smolclaw.git
cd smolclaw
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Lint
ruff check smolclaw/
ruff format --check smolclaw/

Project Structure

smolclaw/              # Python package
├── gateway.py         # Single-process orchestrator
├── agent.py           # Agent class (loads identity, wraps Claude SDK)
├── router.py          # Message routing
├── channel.py         # Channel adapters (Telegram)
├── memory.py          # Namespaced SQLite memory
├── scheduler.py       # Cron scheduler (croniter)
├── api.py             # FastAPI REST endpoints
├── config.py          # Filesystem-based agent discovery
├── cli.py             # Click CLI
└── dashboard/
    └── index.html     # Single-file dashboard

Roadmap

• MCP server support (stdio/SSE/HTTP — Claude SDK managed)
• Extended thinking & effort config
• Budget limits, fallback models, structured output, file checkpointing
• REST API + dark-mode dashboard
• Cron scheduler with validation
• CLI: init, status, doctor, add, remove, add-skill, logs
• Session persistence (save/resume per agent per chat)
• CLI interactive REPL (smolclaw chat)
• Vector search in memory (sqlite-vec embeddings)
• Hot-reload on config changes (no restart needed)
• Multiple Telegram bots (one per agent)
• Cross-agent messaging
• Discord / Slack channel adapters
• PyPI publish

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

MIT